Ruth T. Logan Staton is a native of Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa. She arrived in the United States in 1972, where she began her formal education at Ross Elementary School, in Northwest Washington, DC. By the third grade, her family had moved to Annapolis, MD where she attended Parole Elementary School and Annapolis Junior High School. In 1981, her family relocated to Detroit, MI where she attended and graduated from Laura F. Osborn High School in 1985. After graduation and a semester break, Ruth left Detroit for North Carolina to attend St. Augustine’s College and graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology in 1990. Ruth became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority at St. Augustine’s during the spring of 1989. After college Ruth became a Naturalized citizen of the United States.
Ruth has worked with learning-disabled students for over nineteen years, serving as a teacher, high school principal, manager, program director and recently entrepreneur. Ruth has consistently served in leadership positions influencing the educational programs set in place by the District of Columbia and Maryland public school systems. In 1992, she became a corps member of Teach for America and began her teaching experience in Northridge California. In 1997, and for several years thereafter, she worked as a science teacher for students with learning disabilities and emotional disabilities at the Lodge School in Gaithersburg, MD. Ruth also served as manager, program director, and later, principal of a private high school in the District of Columbia that serves emotionally disabled and learning-disabled students. Ruth has also worked as an Education Coordinator for the National Center for Children and Families a community based organization serving children and families for over 90 years and later as the Community School Director at JC Nalle Elementary School in Southeast Washington DC.
Earlier in her career, Ruth worked for Teach for America addressing budget-planning issues within educational environments. She also taught in the California and New York Public School Systems and a public school in Baltimore, Maryland. After teaching for three years, Ruth entered graduate school where she obtained a Master’s of Science degree in Pharmacology from the University of Maryland (Baltimore).
Filled with the drive, ambition, and desire to help students with Learning Disabilities receive their high school diploma and attend college; Ruth Founded and opened The Monroe School in September of 2006 in Northeast Washington DC. The following year, in March of 2007, Ruth founded The Maya Foundation Inc., (Metropolitan Alliance for Youth Advancement) a non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization that enables students to attend The Monroe School by providing academic scholarships and provides financial assistance to those students desiring to attend college.
Ruth Logan Staton is married to Mr. Ikey P. Staton Jr., whom she has know since their college years, she is a biological mother of one son, Brian who is 9 years old, a mother by Gods will to Brianda (Brian’s biological sister) who is 17 and will be attending her mother’s Almamater St. Augustine’s College on a Presidential Scholarship this coming August of 2011. Ruth is also mother to a few informally adopted children that have been a part of her life since she began teaching in 1992. Both of Ruth’s parents reside in the United States and she has two older brothers and one older sister living in the United States and has one younger sister and a host of family members still living in Liberia.
